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19, redux [to refresh your memory after my long digression into gamebook mechanics] The manticore thrashes its tail which is so powerfully muscled that it lifts us off the ground as we try to hang on. Make a DEX test! (36) if 18 or more; (7) if less than 18. --- 36 We roll 1 & 6, add this...

Are you sure about that? Because I honestly am not so sure these (formerly?) broadly known facts about D&D-ized terms that are also real-world terms -- are so broadly known. If they ever were. Particularly once we get away from a term like ghoul which, almost regardless of culture/myth/story...

Is that pronounced DED-ruh, DAY-druh, or DEE-mon?

Interlude -- Character Creation Or, "Establishing Your Character" as the gamebook titles that section. YOUR Carr Delling will be different from someone else's because YOU help to create him. Each gamebook comes with a tear-out bookmark-slash-character-sheet. Unfortunately, 13-year-old Joshua...

Ludonarrative dissonance. There. Achievement Unlocked. I've waited YEARS for an opportunity to use that phrase.

In fairness, if you try to do that with real-world animals of any sort, you end up with the need to recursively define every word in your animal’s definition, until you are back to, IDK, I’m not a language scholar, some kind of ur-language where a certain inflected grunt meant “hairy thing”...

Every time I see the name of CMON games, I am reminded of the phrase “Come on, August!” (Used by Henry IIRC in the lead-up to 3e) And of (contact)’s adaptation of that phrase into two character names, C’mon and Augustus. [And yes, I know CMON the company = Cool Mini Or Not, originally.]

And the really bad early 4e adventures were written by…? The same person who eventually took over and drove the stake into 4e’s heart with all the glee of Abraham Van Helsing. OK, in fairness, H1 and H3 each have Mearls’ name and one of the three designers’ names on them (Cordell and Wyatt...

Commentary: Dalris is using Charm (Person or) Mammal to control the manticore. According to the 1e AD&D Players Handbook (pp. 55-56), this 1st-level (!) spell "affects all mammalian animals and persons." It does allow a saving throw, but it's still a ridiculously powerful and broadly applicable...

19 Magic Missile was already rejected as a solution and, by-the-book, may not even be powerful enough to down a manticore. So that choice is out. If we give up on the spell component, that renders this entire scene pointless. So that choice is out, too. Let’s grab some tail. When Dalris...

Obviously, they needed to confront a dangerous beast in its natural habitat in order to get the material components for a spell that will… hang on… checks notes … enchant our darts. shuffles papers Did I read that right? turns papers over, looks at the back, then looks on the floor for any...

Monsters that automatically focus fire down one character at a time are both tactically optimal and fit the dangerous Hobbesian nature of the gamebook world. At least knowing this lets you exploit the monster’s algorithms to your advantage. — “Quaff a healing potion at any time, even during...

I think the point here was “what system could we use that is somewhere between a full combat with minis and attack rolls, vs. just hand-wave it a bunch”? And the answer is: play GUMSHOE and pretend it’s an action game! No, sorry, that was mean of me. I tease out of love. The answer for 4e is...

It’s a metaphor for the wheel of reincarnation. Very Buddhist.

Commentary: What are we here for, a tail spike or a quill? Those are not the same thing. And manticores don’t have quills. I sadly no longer own my 1e AD&D Monster Manual (more's the pity), but I'm assuming the creature didn't fundamentally change by 2e, where it's described with "a leonine...

Let the proper game-bookin’ begin! 1 "The golden hues of the sinking Tikandian sun bring a message to gentler dwellers of the wild: feed and hide before the thick evening shadows call the nightly hunters." (Cool, evocative opening line.) We’re the hunters! And we’ve cornered "one of the...